Political Capital » Fundraisinghttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital
Politics blog featuring the latest news and analysis from Washington and the US. Political editors provide insights & data about today’s politics.Thu, 07 Aug 2014 19:48:32 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2Obama’s Five-Point Party Pitch — Pelosi Suggests Stepping it Uphttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-23/obamas-pitch-party/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-23/obamas-pitch-party/#commentsWed, 23 Jul 2014 21:45:30 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=136453He may not be looking so great these days, President Barack Obama says, but the economy is looking up. The political picture in Washington remains bleaker, however, the president said in a pitch today to some of his party’s top financial donors in Silicon Valley. He made his pitch for his party at the home […]

President Barack Obama disembarks from Air Force One at the Los Angeles International airport on July 23, 2014.

He may not be looking so great these days, President Barack Obama says, but the economy is looking up.

The political picture in Washington remains bleaker, however, the president said in a pitch today to some of his party’s top financial donors in Silicon Valley.

He made his pitch for his party at the home of George Marcus in Los Altos Hills, California — he’s the founder of a real estate brokerage firm, Marcus & Millichap. In the past, Federal Election Commission records show, Marcus has written a $100,000 check to the Democratic National Committee, and another to the American Bridge committee, as well as tens of thousands more to the party and other party-related causes — including $5,000 to “End the Gridlock.”

In his pitch, the president demonstrated the five elements essential to collecting $32,000 checks:

1) Personal connection:

“I’ve got so many friends, so many people who have supported me for so long,” he said. “As I look back, I realize how many of you have pictures of me with no gray hair. You’re chronicling the slow deterioration of Barack Obama.”

“But as a consequence, one of my main functions here today is just to say thank you because you guys have been incredibly supportive in everything that we’ve done at every stage. Many of you supported me back when I was running for the U.S. Senate, when nobody could pronounce my name, and then helped to mobilize an amazing movement back in 2008, and it continued until today.”

2) Economic report card:

“There’s almost no economic measure by which we are not better off today than we were when I came into office — that 52 straight months of job growth; 10 million jobs created; this past year, the biggest drop in unemployment in 30 years. Unemployment now is lower than it was before Lehman’s. We’ve seen the deficit cut by more than half. Millions of people have health care that didn’t have it before and health care inflation is the lowest that it’s been in 50 years. The stock market, obviously, has more than recovered and that’s important for Wall Street but, more importantly, it’s important for Main Street. ”

3) Empathy for public anxiety:

“There’s a lot of anxiety out there. And there’s anxiety for a couple of reasons. Number one, for all the progress that we’ve made, there’s a 20, 30-year trend that has not changed, and that is that more and more, productivity, corporate profits, the benefits of innovation accrue to folks at the very top. And the middle class and folks striving to get into the middle class, they’re stuck. They feel like they’re treading water. They feel as if, no matter how hard they work, they can’t get ahead, and, more worrisome, they’re concerned that their kids are not going to be able to get ahead.”

4) Blaming the Opposition:

“The second concern people have is it feels as if Washington doesn’t work and doesn’t listen to people and isn’t paying attention to them. And those two things are related. And the reason we don’t do it is because politics doesn’t work in Washington. And the reason politics does not work in Washington — I want to be clear — is not because both parties are in the tank. It’s not because everybody who goes to Congress is solely self-interested. The reason it doesn’t work right now is because we have one party that has no agenda other than making government not work; whose primary function, primary purpose right now, if you distill their ideology, comes down to saying no to any efforts to help ordinary families get ahead. Some of it is ideologically-driven.”

“Some of it is driven by pure political calculation — because what they know is if government is not working, people get cynical; and if people get cynical they do not vote; and if people do not vote that advantages them. ”

5) Making the pitch:

“I am a Democrat and I’m a proud Democrat. But my favorite president is the first Republican president from my home state of Illinois, a guy name Abraham Lincoln. And there has been throughout our history contributions by both parties to advance the common good. I’d love nothing more than a loyal and rational opposition. But that’s not what we have right now, and as a consequence we’re going to need change. And to bring about change, we’re going to need you. ”

It’s been working for him.

Collecting $10,000 from individuals today and $32,400 from couples, this was the eighth fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee the president has headlined. For all the focus on the Democratic Party’s attempt to maintain control of the Senate in November, there also are a lot of House seats in contention. And so there he was today, the president standing with a couple of the party’s prospects for House seats.

Yet one partisan ally of the president suggests that perhaps it’s past time that Obama make a harder push with the first four-fifths of that pitch to a broader voting public.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California was with Obama today.

She asserted earlier this week, in an appearance on MSNBC’s ”Morning Joe,” that it’s not beyond reason to suggest that her party could also regain control of the House. She made the same economic success case that Obama did today: The Dow fell to 7,000 in the early days of his watch, during the worst recession since the Great Depression — it’s over 17,000 today. The federal deficit was over $1.5 billion and rising. Today it’s under $600 billion and falling. Unemployment was close to 10 percent, and now its near 6 and falling. And, yet, she recognized the same public anxiety that the president spoke of today — and with a public so restive, she suggested, anything is possible in November.

Pelosi was asked about why the president isn’t connecting with the public about the successes he is touting — his approval rating at 42 percent in the latest Gallup Poll.

“There is, as you know, a lot of talk about the president of the United States being kind of remote,” MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle told Pelosi. “Kind of difficult to access emotionally. Kind of not angry enough… What is the deal with the guy?”

Pelosi reeled out the numbers on the Dow, the debt, unemployment and more.

“I think he has a great deal to be proud of,” Pelosi said of the president. “While I disagree with the characterization, if that’s the impression people have, then communication has to be stepped up.”

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-23/obamas-pitch-party/feed/0Akin for a Fundraiser: McCaskillhttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-15/akin-fundraiser-mccaskill/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-15/akin-fundraiser-mccaskill/#commentsTue, 15 Jul 2014 19:06:03 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=135873For Claire McCaskill, Todd Akin is the gift that keeps campaign giving going. It was Akin, the Missouri senator’s Republican challenger in 2012, whose campaign imploded after he suggested that pregnancy rarely results from a “legitimate rape.” It was Akin who later apologized, calling rape “an evil act.” And it was McCaskill who won re-election by […]

And it is McCaskill — who says she’s read the book (”I sat down and read the whole thing in an hour and 45 minutes”) — who is raising money off Akin’s 2014 book, just as she raised money off his remarks in 2012.

“In his book, he doubles down on many of the extreme positions that put him out of touch with Missouri voters,” the senator says in a fundraising email. “He takes back his apology for his extreme remarks, and instead reaffirms his belief that women have magic uteruses in cases of `legitimate rape.'”

For $5, she says, supporters can “stand up to outrageous right-wing politicians.” She says she wishes “we’d heard the last from Todd Akin and his right-wing fans.” Yet the fundraising potential makes us wonder if she does.

Akin, who filmed a campaign-ad apology for his remarks in 2012 — he “used the wrong words in the wrong way,” he said — apparently states in his book that he shouldn’t have apologized.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-15/akin-fundraiser-mccaskill/feed/0Christie’s RGA Fundraising Streakhttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-10/christies-rga-fundraising-streak/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-10/christies-rga-fundraising-streak/#commentsThu, 10 Jul 2014 14:07:59 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=135401New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addresses the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s ‘Road to Majority’ Policy Conference on June 20, 2014 in Washington, DC. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may be catching some flak close to home these days. Yet, for the second time this year, he got a little good news with today’s report of […]

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addresses the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s ‘Road to Majority’ Policy Conference on June 20, 2014 in Washington, DC.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may be catching some flak close to home these days. Yet, for the second time this year, he got a little good news with today’s report of the Republican Governors Association’s second straight quarter of record fundraising.

The results show he remains a potent fundraiser for the party even as he faces criticism closer to home over the state’s stagnant economy, the George Washington Bridge scandal and delays in Hurricane Sandy recovery.

Christie is chairman of the Washington-based group.

The RGA, which works to elect Republicans nationwide, has a record $70.3 million in cash on hand heading into November, with 36 governorships up for election, it said in a statement this morning. The party holds a majority of governorships and is defending 22 offices.

Under Christie, the group also raised a record $26.6 million in the second quarter to outpace the $19 million the group raised in the last comparable election cycle in 2010, according to the statement. The RGA had $40 million in cash at this point four years ago.

“The RGA has never been in such a strong financial position. It is a tribute to the sound policy, good governance and real results coming from states with Republican governors,” Christie said in the statement. “Their bold leadership, combined with the RGA’s significant resources, put us in strong position to win governors’ races across the country this year.”

Christie, 51, has said he’s under no pressure to make a decision on his own potential White House bid until next year, but got some encouraging news this week when a Quinnipiac University poll showed the party has no clear front-runner for the nomination.

President Barack Obama is greeted by Texas Governor Rick Perry as he arrives in Dallas, Texas, on July 9, 2014.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry and President Barack Obama emerged from their private meeting with civil and religious leaders in Dallas today with some suggestions.

“Deploy an additional 1,000 National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border to immediately enhance border security operations,” Perry suggested. “Direct the Federal Aviation Administration to allow the National Guard to utilize Predator drones along the Texas-Mexico border for identifying and tracking human and drug trafficking.”

“Right now, there are more Border Patrol” and surveillance officials on the ground than at any time in history, said Obama, noting that the problem isn’t a flood of refugee children entering the U.S. illegally — most are being caught and detained, he said. The problem is housing and processing them, as most ultimately will be deported.

In the long range, Obama said, the best way to address the problem is for the House to approve a Senate-passed comprehensive immigration bill — which authorizes thousands of added border agents.

Obama, calling the meeting with Perry “constructive,” said the government will have the resources to carry out some of his plans if Congress approves the emergency bill seeking almost $4 billion that the president has presented to lawmakers this week.

There’s nothing the governor proposed that Obama has “a philosophical objection to,” the president said. “The problem here isn’t a major disagreement” around the solutions needed. The challenge, he said, is getting congressional approval. Calling Perry’s 1,000 added National Guard troops on the border a temporary solution, he did say it’s one that could be financed if Congress approves his supplemental budget.

Ultimately, the question is: “Are folks more interested in politics or solving the problem?” Obama asked, pointing again to Congress. “If the preference is for politics, then it won’t be solved.”

The president walked through some of the concerns that Perry raised in their meeting. He didn’t initially mention this one:

“Visit the Texas-Mexico border to witness firsthand the impact of the border crisis” — Perry’s office listed this first among the requests the governor made to the president.

The president, who held this meeting in Dallas en route to two campaign fundraisers for his party’s congressional candidates tonight and another tomorrow morning in Austin, Texas, has no plans to inspect a border situation that many members of his administration already have seen.

Obama was asked about this by a reporter.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson “has now visited, at my direction, the border five times,” Obama said. “He then comes back to me and reports extensively everything that is taking place.”

There is nothing happening at the border about which he is not aware, the president asserted.

“This isn’t theater,” the president said. . This is a problem. I;’m not interested in photo-ops. I’m interested in solving a problem.”

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-09/obama-border-tour-isnt-theater/feed/0Obama vs. Perry: This Can’t Go Well for One of Themhttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-09/obama-vs-perry-cant-go-well-one/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-09/obama-vs-perry-cant-go-well-one/#commentsWed, 09 Jul 2014 13:43:47 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=135313Updated at 2:55 pm EDT This can’t go well for one of them. President Barack Obama and Texas Gov. Rick Perry are to meet in Dallas today as the government attempts to cope with an uncontrolled influx of tens of thousands of migrant children. The Republican governor, who publicly has accused the president of not […]

President Barack Obama and Texas Gov. Rick Perry are to meet in Dallas today as the government attempts to cope with an uncontrolled influx of tens of thousands of migrant children.

The Republican governor, who publicly has accused the president of not particularly caring “whether or not the border of the United States is secure,” will meet privately with Obama and invited civic and religious leaders.

Perry also will offer the president a previously unaccepted tarmac greeting before their 5:55 pm EDT group session at Dallas Love Field — following Obamas’s landing at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport — as the president arrives in Texas for a series of fundraisers in Dallas and Austin tonight and tomorrow for the Democratic Party’s congressional candidates.

“My understanding is that Governor Perry will greet the president on the tarmac and the two will meet privately at some point prior to the roundtable,” said Travis Considine, Perry’s deputy press secretary, in an email following Politico’s report of the greeting.

The White House, with spokesman Josh Earnest insisting they are not worried about “those optics,” has said there are no plans for the president to visit the Texas border, where other members of the administration have gone for first-hand looks at the humanitarian challenge emerging as thousands of children have crossed the border in recent months.

Yet the president’s critics, including the Texas governor who sought the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 2012 and is weighing another run in 2016, have seized on the moment as a symbol of the president’s alleged inaction. And Obama’s encounters with Republican governors have their own checkered history — ranging from an angry finger-wagging in Arizona to a bipartisan embrace in New Jersey.

One of Obama’s most outspoken Republican critics, Representative Blake Farenthold of Texas, has called this saga “Obama’s Katrina” — an allusion to former President George W. Bush’s initial mishandling of the Gulfcoast damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, including an Air Force One flyover of New Orleans by a president seen as remote in the act.

“I’m sure that President Bush thought the same thing, that he could just look at everything from up in the sky, and then he owned it after a long time,” Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, said Monday on Fox News. ‘So I hope this doesn’t become the Katrina moment for President Obama, saying that he doesn’t need to come to the border. He should come down.’’

The Obama administration names many officials who have gone to the border. In the White House invitation to Perry for today’s meeting, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett noted that Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has traveled to the border five times and plans to return Friday. The Department of Homeland Security said Johnson traveled yesterday to Guatemala, the origin of many of the children who have fled their homes, traversed Mexico and crossed into the Southwestern U.S.

“There are people trying to turn this situation into a political football,” Cecilia Munoz, the White House domestic affairs adviser, said in an appearance today on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.

It’s unfair to equate a humanitarian crisis to the natural disasters that Obama has visited, Munoz said, citing actions the administration has taken to shelter and ultimately deal with the refugees — including direct warnings to Guatemala that children transported by smugglers to the U.S. will not be allowed to remain in the country. Today’s meeting includes religious leaders working to temporarily shelter the children who face hearings and ultimate deportation, she said.

Nevertheless, talk radio and TV is consumed with comparisons, and the contrasts of the president’s fundraising journey and absence of a personal border tour.

“You’ve got to go down to the border, and if you don’t go down to the border, then cancel the fundraisers,” Joe Scarborough, host of the morning MSNBC show and a former Republican congressman from Florida’s Panhandle, said today.

For Perry and Obama alone, today’s planned meeting poses further political opportunities, and obstacles.

“What has to be addressed is the security of the border,” Perry said in on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday. “You know that, I know that, the president of the United States knows that. I don’t believe he particularly cares whether or not the border of the United States is secure, and that’s the reason there’s been this lack of effort, this lack of focus, this lack of resources.”

While news coverage of their closed-door meeting will be limited to a “pool spray” of photographers at which a question is sometimes called out and answered by the president, the Texas governor — who had earlier refused an invitation to publicly greet the president at his tarmac arrival today — is certain to find some microphones following their meeting.

Even as the president addresses the issue in Dallas today, Republicans are accusing him of ignoring the gravity of the situation in averting a border tour.

A sad state of affairs when a President has time to attend fundraisers in Texas but not to address his Admin’s humanitarian crisis on border

Perry, who will retire at year’s end after three terms as governor and the longest-serving in state history, has worked at reshaping his own image since a failed bid for his party’s presidential nomination in which he couldn’t name the three federal agencies he pledged to close during a party debate.

“The third agency of government I would do away with – the education, the uh, the commerce and let’s see,” he said on Nov. 9, 2011. ‘ I can’t the third one. I can’t. Sorry Oops.’’

Obama’s own local meetings with Republican governors during almost six years in the White House has a mixed record.

Immigration also was on Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s mind when she greeted Obama at an airport arrival in January 2012 with a face-to-face scolding and wagging of a gubernnatorial finger in the president’s face.

“What I’ve discovered is, I think it’s always good publicity for a Republican if they’re in an argument with me,” Obama said in an ABC News interview about the Brewer incident.

Obama’s tour of the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 provided a lift for both the president, at the climax of a hard-fought reelection campaign against Republican Mitt Romney, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Christie initially faced criticism within his party for embracing Obama at the height of a fight for the White House. The Republican governor, telling news outlets that Obama’s response to the storm had been “outstanding” and the coordination with federal officials “wonderful,” said: “The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit.”

Yet the coordination of the two evolved into a widely perceived example of constructive bipartisanship in the face of a crisis, an impression serving Christie well if he pursues his own campaign for the party’s presidential nod in 2016.

Charlie Crist, Florida’s former Republican governor and attorney general, was initially criticized within that party for embracing Obama’s support in governmental matters.

Then, after running for U.S. Senate as an independent, Crist switched parties and endorsed Obama’s re-election on the stage of the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Now, Crist is running for governor again as a Democrat and holds an average 2.2 percentage point advantage over Republican Governor Rick Scott in opinion polls tallied by RealClearPolitics.com.

Nevertheless, Republicans are employing Crist’s support for the president’s health-care law and his party-switching as tools against him in his bid for election in November in a state that Obama carried in two presidential elections.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-09/obama-vs-perry-cant-go-well-one/feed/0McCain: Obama ‘Going to Texas Without Going to Border?’http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-07/135031/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-07/135031/#commentsMon, 07 Jul 2014 16:01:35 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=135031President Barack Obama is bound for Texas this week. To raise some money for his party’s congressional campaigns. Republicans are suggesting a detour: To the border, where tens of thousands of children from Central America have arrived without parents, placing an extraordinary strain on emergency housing and hearings in detention centers. “Going to Texas, without […]

U.S. Border Patrol agents near a section of U.S.-Mexico border fence in La Joya, Texas.

President Barack Obama is bound for Texas this week.

To raise some money for his party’s congressional campaigns.

Republicans are suggesting a detour: To the border, where tens of thousands of children from Central America have arrived without parents, placing an extraordinary strain on emergency housing and hearings in detention centers.

“Going to Texas, without going to the border,”Arizona Sen. John McCain said today of Obama’s itinerary. “I don’t know how you do that — go to fundraisers and don’t go to the border and see for yourself how we are being inundated by tens of thousands.”

The White House has said that there are no plans for a border visit as Obama travels to Dallas on Wednesday for a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser and then on to Austin for a Democratic National Committee event. He will be arriving in Texas via Colorado, with an appearance at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee event in Denver.

Asked at the White House press briefing a little later today about the “optics” of the president’s trip, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said: “We”re not worried about those optics.”

The president is `very aware of what is happening” along the Southwest border, he said.

“It’s unacceptable,” Obama’s erstwhile 2008 election opponent said of the influx of children. “We should tell these countries in Central America, no more aid, no more acceptance, nothing,” until they get it under control.

`As you know, I’ve been for comprehensive immigration reform,” McCain said. “You can’t do that unless you have secure borders. … That’s why border enforcement has got to happen.”

Asked about the prospect of the president undertaking some comprehensive immigration reforms under his own executive authority, the senator said: `We have to take him to court, is one of our only options. The other is to attempt to override that with the votes in Congress… I can’t imagine that even some of our Democratic friends would want to sit by and let this happen.”

The White House said today that Obama will present a supplemental budget request to Congress and additional authority for confronting the border emergency tomorrow. The White House spokesman said, “We should see some bipartisan support for this.” There are“humanitarian” concerns about what is happening on the border, he said, “while enforcing the law” is also a priority.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-07/135031/feed/0Bush 41 Socks it to Democratshttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-22/bush-41-socks-democrats/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-22/bush-41-socks-democrats/#commentsSun, 22 Jun 2014 13:07:19 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=134173In hopes of socking it to the Democratic Party in November, the Republicans have been raising money with signature show-off socks authorized by the 41st president for months. Now, the former president is making the pitch. “I don’t know what your guilty pleasures are in life, but one of mine is socks,” Bush, who turned […]

]]>In hopes of socking it to the Democratic Party in November, the Republicans have been raising money with signature show-off socks authorized by the 41st president for months.

Now, the former president is making the pitch.

“I don’t know what your guilty pleasures are in life, but one of mine is socks,” Bush, who turned 90 recently with another signature parachute jump, says in an e-mail fundraising appeal for the party this morning. “I’m a self-proclaimed sock man. The louder, the brighter, the crazier the pattern — the better! It’s usually the first thing people notice I’m wearing whenever I’m out in public and that’s the way I like it.”

Bush says he was happy to join the party’s 2014 fundraising drive, so long as there were socks involved. In this case, a colorful pair with the Republican elephant and his signature embroidered at the ankle.

We first noted the sock drive in April as more colorful than the “I Really Miss Reagan” buttons the party is peddling in honor of that late, former president whom his erstwhile challenger, and later successor, once accused of promoting“voodoo economics.”

Or the GOP barbecue spatula, good for flipping positions perhaps — as a certain someone did on a lip-read, no-new taxes pledge once.

Or, fast-forwarding to the next presidential election: A T-shirt with the Obama campaign logo blocked by the international stop symbol asking: ``Is it 2016 yet?”

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-22/bush-41-socks-democrats/feed/0Favored California Candidate Creates Leadership PAChttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-16/favored-california-candidate-creates-leadership-pac/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-16/favored-california-candidate-creates-leadership-pac/#commentsMon, 16 Jun 2014 21:02:02 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=133715California state Sen. Mimi Walters, favored to win an open U.S. House seat in Orange County, has already set up a leadership political action committee. Blessings of Liberty PAC is sponsored by Walters’s Republican campaign in California’s open 45th District, according to papers on file with the Federal Election Commission. Leadership PACs allow members of […]

]]>California state Sen. Mimi Walters, favored to win an open U.S. House seat in Orange County, has already set up a leadership political action committee.

Blessings of Liberty PAC is sponsored by Walters’s Republican campaign in California’s open 45th District, according to papers on file with the Federal Election Commission.

Leadership PACs allow members of Congress to advance their political goals and make campaign donations to like-minded candidates for office. It’s a way to get in the good graces of congressional colleagues, including party leaders. A majority of members of Congress have leadership PACs.

The papers creating Walters’s PAC were filled out June 4, the day after she was the top vote-getter in the all-candidate, all-party primary in California’s 45th District, a Republican stronghold that includes Irvine, Tustin, Lake Forest and most of Mission Viejo. The FEC processed the papers on June 12.

Walters is favored in the November election over Democrat Drew Leavens, whom she led by 45 percent to 28 percent in the primary.

It’s less common, though not unprecedented, for a favored congressional candidate like Walters to create a leadership PAC before the general election.

Rep. Aaron Schock of Illinois organized his leadership PAC, GOP Generation Y Fund, about two months after he won a key Republican primary in 2008 that presaged his election that November.

Political Capital left a telephone message with Walters’s campaign office and sent an e-mail to the address listed for the leadership PAC. We’ll update this post if a response is received.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-16/favored-california-candidate-creates-leadership-pac/feed/0Obama, Bentleys, Maseratis, Rovershttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-14/obama-bentleys-maseratis-rovers/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-14/obama-bentleys-maseratis-rovers/#commentsSat, 14 Jun 2014 15:57:18 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=133585Updated at 1:45 and 10:30 pm, and June 15 at 6:45 pm EDT President Barack Obama is spending the weekend on the West Coast, delivering a commencement address, raising money for the Democratic Party — and, no doubt, looking forward to a golf course before returning to Washington on Monday. The president’s weekend residence is […]

President Barack Obama is spending the weekend on the West Coast, delivering a commencement address, raising money for the Democratic Party — and, no doubt, looking forward to a golf course before returning to Washington on Monday.

The president’s weekend residence is in a gated community in a part of Rancho Mirage also home to dealers for Bentleys, Range Rovers, Rolls Royces and Maseratis.

It is reached by a route that included roads named for Dinah Shore, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and Ginger Rogers.

Obama left the retreat today to spend part of the day on the California coast before returning to Rancho Mirage. It’s a short ride from the Palm Springs airport to Anaheim aboard Air Force One, for a fundraiser in Laguna Beach and then on to the University of California at Irvine, for the graduation ceremony there.

The president arrived at the home ofAnne Getty Earhart, granddaughter of the late oil magnate. She is an environmentalist and coastal activist and donor to the Clinton Foundation as well. About two dozen supporters were contributing up to $32,400, the maximum allowable, for the Democratic National Committee’s causes.

The day ended back in Palm Springs, where the president put in three hours-plus on the Sunnylands golf course at the Walter Annenberg estate, where he has golfed a couple of times before, this time with a couple of traveling aides. The president is spending Father’s Day in Palm Springs with his wife and daughter Malia. Sasha, 13 now, didn’t make this trip.

The president finished the weekend with a Sunday round of golf at Larry Ellison’s private golf course — sans Ellison. The president had played on the Oracle greens in February as well.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-14/obama-bentleys-maseratis-rovers/feed/0Biden: ‘Cardinal Sin’ of Abusehttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-16/biden-cardinal-sin-abuse/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-16/biden-cardinal-sin-abuse/#commentsFri, 16 May 2014 16:04:35 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=130922Vice President Joe Biden made a surprise appearance last night at a domestic violence fundraiser. How did the organizers get him there? Well, it helps when one of them is the Veep’s daughter-in-law. “I’m always really careful about his schedule, because I know he’s pulled in so many directions,” explained Kathleen Biden, who is married […]

Vice President Joe Biden made a surprise appearance last night at a domestic violence fundraiser.

How did the organizers get him there?

Well, it helps when one of them is the Veep’s daughter-in-law.

“I’m always really careful about his schedule, because I know he’s pulled in so many directions,” explained Kathleen Biden, who is married to Biden’s son, Hunter. (He has accepted a seat on the board at Ukraine’s largest private gas firm. )

“But he is one of the reasons I’m involved in this issue, and I have three daughters.”

Kathleen Biden is vice president of the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project, which provides legal services to women and children survivors of abuse.

Last night she helped raise over $300,000 for the organization at the residence of Japanese Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae.

When the vice president was in the Senate, he was the principal author of the Violence Against Women Act.

It was one of his proudest accomplishments, he said, yet there is still work to be done — especially in today’s culture, where celebrities, like Rihanna, stay in abusive relationships.

“There was an entire generation of women who were taught to stand by your man,” he explained. “It’s a sick concept.”

“My father always said that the biggest cardinal sin was abuse of power,” he reflected. “The biggest abuse of power is when a man raises his hand to a woman or child.”

Another reason Biden made the stop was to congratulate his old friend and fellow Delaware native, Adrienne Arsht, who received the group’s first Voices Against Violence Champion of Justice Award.

She is a philanthropist, known for her sizable contributions to the arts and to The Atlantic Council. The chairman emerita of TotalBank in Miami gave $30 million toward the city’s new performing arts center, now named for her.

Last night she pledged an additional $300,000 to the DC Volunteers Lawyers Project, raising her total contribution to $1 million.